7 Sad Facts About Baccarat

When gamblers ask me what the best game in the casino is, I ask them a few questions. If they don’t have much experience, I recommend baccarat. It’s easy to play and I can explain what bet to make quickly. This gives them a game they can play that has a high return to player percentage.

But if they have some experience and can learn more advanced strategies, blackjack and video poker are better games. And this is only 1 of the sad facts about baccarat.

Learn more about 7 sad facts about baccarat in this article.

1 – The Tie Wager Is Bad

When you play real money baccarat the base game has 3 bet options. Some baccarat games have side bets available, but you can learn everything you need to know about baccarat side bets in 2 sentence. The best strategy for baccarat side wagers is to ignore them because none of them are as good as 1 of the main 3 options.

Each of the 3 base bets available at the baccarat table has its own unique return to player number. And the worst of the 3 is the tie wager.

You can use return to player numbers to compare wager options. Basically when you compare wager options, the wager with the highest return to player number is the best option. If you know the return to player number you can multiply it times the amount you bet to find out how much of your bet you can expect to win back.

The baccarat tie wager has a return to player of 85.54% or worse. This is terrible, and almost every other bet in the casino is better.

2 – The Player Wager Is Better, but Still Not Great

The player wager option is much better than the tie wager. But it still isn’t great. The return to player for the player baccarat bet is 98.76%.

But remember that when you play baccarat you have 3 options. And the truth is that you need to compare your baccarat options to every other option in the casino. You’re going to learn more about this is section 6 in this article.

The player bet is not bad overall, and it’s better than the available bet options for most casino games. But it’s not even the best bet option at the baccarat table.

3 – Banker Wager and/or Bust

The best bet option when you play baccarat is the banker wager. It has a return to player of 98.94%, which ranks fairly high for casino games overall.

What this means is that if you play baccarat, the only wager you should consider is the banker bet. And there’s still a problem with the banker bet.

If you noticed the title of this section, it says banker wager and/or bust. This might sound like a strange statement, but it makes sense if you understand what I mean.

The reason why I say that you should make the banker wager or bust is because it’s the best option at the table. But the reason why I say the banker wager and bust is because even when you make the banker wager if you play long enough you’re going to bust.

Any bet you make that has a return to player number less than 100, which is almost every bet you make in a casino, is going to take your money. It might take your money slowly, but it’s going to take your money.

4 – Commission

The banker bet has a commission that the casino collects when you win. The number I gave you in the last section includes this commission. The percentage that the casino collects on this bet is 5%.

The reason why the commission is a sad fact is because if the casino didn’t collect it the banker wager would actually have a return to player of over 100%. Of course, this is why the casino collects the commission. They’d lose money if they didn’t, and 1 thing that casinos don’t do is lose money.

You’re not going to find any baccarat games that don’t charge a commission, but you might run across 1 that has a reduced commission. And if you do find 1 of these games you should take advantage of it.

5 – No Baccarat Strategy Works

I’ve already told you everything you need to know to play baccarat with the highest possible return to player percentage. The banker wager is the only thing you should ever do when you play baccarat. And because the bet still has a return to player number under 100, you should make the smallest wager possible when you make it.

Beyond doing this, there isn’t any strategy that works when you play baccarat. And I’m not sure that making the same bet on every hand can be called strategy.

You can find a few systems that claim to work, but they don’t work in the long run so don’t get sucked in when you see 1. And some people have tried to count cards when playing baccarat, but this doesn’t work either.

6 – Baccarat Is Good but Not the Best

Baccarat is a good game. In fact, it’s a better game option than most other games in the casinos. And it’s a ton better than non casino games like bingo and the lottery. But it’s not the nest game in the casino.

Remember that you learned the best way to compare casino games is to look at the return to player. A few games can be played with a higher return to player than baccarat. But none of these games is as easy to play as baccarat.

This means you have to decide if you want something easy that has a decent return to player or if you’re willing to work a little harder to get a better return to player.

The 2 main options for games that can have a better return to player are video poker and blackjack. You have to locate good games and learn advanced strategy, but both of these options can be played with a return to player of 99.5% or higher.

A few other options that might offer a better number are poker and betting on sports. These both require even more advanced strategy than video poker and blackjack, but you can actually reach a return number over 100% if you master the correct skills with these 2 games.

Just to be clear, the poker games I’m talking about are Texas holdem and Omaha, not the table poker games offered by the blackjack tables like 3 card poker and Let It Ride poker.

7 – Baccarat Is the Most Boring Gambling Game Ever Invented

I don’t know why I get so bored playing baccarat, but it’s the most boring game I play in casinos. I like to use strategy and use my brain to try t o win, and baccarat simply doesn’t offer anything to keep me interested.

After I make the banker bet for the 213^th time I’ve just about crossed the line between sanity and crazy. Even slot machines, which are basically as simple as baccarat, have different combinations that keep the game slightly more interesting than baccarat.

Of course, I don’t usually play slots because the returns to player numbers are so much worse than I get when I play baccarat.

I rarely play baccarat now because of this. My main games are blackjack and cash game poker. Both of these games require advanced strategy and constant attention. If I don’t stay sharp I lose my edge, so these games keep me involved.

But I realize that many gamblers are looking for something different than what I’m looking for. If you’re looking for a game that has a decent return to player and doesn’t require paying attention, then baccarat is a great game for you.

Conclusion

The worst thing about baccarat is that it’s boring. In fact, it might be the most boring game in the casinos. And the second worst thing about baccarat is that you can’t win.

All 3 available bets are going to lose in the long run. The tie bet is the worst, and even though the player bet is better than the tie, it still has a house edge. And the best bet, the banker wager, has a smaller house edge but still can’t be beat.

Baccarat is a good game for gamblers, but it’s still not the best game in the casino.